It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia Season 16 Reveals The Tragic Fate Of Season 15's Monkey

Some sitcoms have no problem leaving random plot threads hanging, but "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" always seems to tie things up somehow. After all, Charlie's (Charlie Day) sister was mentioned in the season 1 episode "Charlie Got Molested" and then never again until last week's season 16 episode, in which Mac (Rob McElhenney) even comments, "I forgot you had sisters." There are some wild details that have come back up years later, but in the most recent episode, "The Gang Gets Cursed," they resolved one mystery from last season: Whatever happened to the monkey the guys hired to replace Dee (Kaitlin Olson)? 

In the aptly named "The Gang Replaces Dee with a Monkey," Sweet Dee gets an acting job and is going to leave the bar for a bit. Dennis (Glenn Howerton) and the guys made cracks about how a monkey could do her job, so Frank (Danny DeVito) buys a monkey with a bizarre history who apparently knows how to bartend. At some point, Frank says, the monkey even served drinks for former First Lady of Massachusetts, Kitty Dukakis. It turns out that the monkey was a thief, however, and he put whiskey in the beers he served, getting the gang drunk so he could rob the bar and sexually assault their mouths. After that, however, the gang (and the audience) never saw the monkey again. Now in "The Gang Gets Cursed," we find out exactly what happened to the monkey, and it's pretty gruesome. 

In "The Gang Gets Cursed," Mac is carrying around a monkey's paw that he believes is giving him good luck, as evidenced by Paddy's Pub being selected for an episode of the reality series "Bar Rescue." He found the paw, still attached to the monkey, behind the kegs, where it had apparently been decomposing for all of this time. While we don't know exactly how long has passed since the gang got back from Ireland, it's safe to assume that the monkey is at least partially mummified at this point. But how did he end up behind the kegs in the first place?

Either he got drunk himself after robbing the bar and passed out there, undisturbed because the gang was in Ireland, then apparently just didn't need to change any kegs, or he ended up locked in the bar when the gang went to Ireland and he died of starvation after running out of bar mix and maraschino cherries. Whatever led to his demise, the monkey is extremely dead and missing a hand. For once, a strange animal death may not entirely be the gang's fault, but they definitely could have handled finding the corpse a bit better. Oh well — at least Mac got the monkey hand stolen by Chase Utley. There's a bit of revenge for the beer monkey, from the afterlife. 

New episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" premiere Wednesdays on FXX and are available to stream the next day on Hulu.